When I think about paging systems, I immediately hear the crackle of my high school principal’s voice giving morning announcements.
It’s a good example of how paging systems can help collaboration, but it only touches the surface of the importance of this technology.
- Healthcare organizations use paging systems to alert a floor of different codes needing urgent attention.
- Manufacturers use paging systems to break through the commotion of the shop floor and notify specific employees or departments.
- Any business can use paging systems to alert staff about emergencies or company-wide announcements.
If you find yourself falling into one of those categories, paging is a critical part of your company. Any changes you make to your phone system can’t interfere with paging capailities.
For The KR Group’s customers who utilize paging, they always ask if their new phone system will integrate with their existing paging system. The good news we have for them is if they move to Cisco Unified Communications Manager, they won’t lose anything at all.
That being said, there are a few things for you to consider if you decide to integrate your existing paging system or migrate to a new one, including these four:
- Adding appropriate ports to a gateway or leveraging a SIP trunk
- Using dedicated adaptors if needed
- Installing additional speakers to page via the Cisco IP phone speakers
- Using Singlewire’s InformaCast to page
The first three of these considerations fall into the hardware category. While you’re able to continue using existing lines and speakers, you do need ports and adaptors to connect your old and new technology.
The final consideration, Singlewire’s InformaCast, is the software that integrates with Cisco’s phone systems if you wish to replace your legacy paging system entirely.
Adding appropriate ports to a gateway or leveraging a SIP trunk
How you connect the users of your new phone system to the existing paging system will depend on if you make calls with a VoIP gateway or SIP trunk.
If you use a VoIP gateway to convert audio between the public switched telephone network (PTSN) and your IP network, you’ll need to make sure there are enough of the correct type of physical ports to dedicate to your paging system.
This isn’t expensive since you’ll already need a VoIP gateway for routing calls to and from the outside world (PTSN). The individual ports are the only additional hardware you’ll add.
If you use a SIP trunk integration to send and receive calls via an IP network, you’ll need to add ports to the SIP configurations directly to your Cisco Unified Communications Manager to enable users to page within your company.
Using dedicated adaptors if needed with Cisco paging system
Depending on the age and type of your existing paging system, you may need to add adaptors to properly complete the integration.
Without an adaptor, the connection between your VoIP gateway and the paging system can create distortion and feedback. The adaptors are designed with a miniature buffer that records the page you want to send and then replays it over your paging system.
SIP trunk integrations typically have this functionality built in but should still be verified to avoid these issues.
Either way, an adaptor allows you to keep using whatever external paging system you have in place, but with your BE6K or BE7K phone system.
Installing additional speakers to page via the Cisco IP phone speakers
With ports and adaptors configured for paging, you can now broadcast the message over your new Cisco phone system.
By leveraging Singlewire’s InformaCast – which we discuss next – you can continue to use your existing overhead speakers. Or, you can consider using the speakers on your IP phone handsets or other speaker options.
If overhead speakers are important to you but are outdated, you might want to consider upgrading your speakers and implementing ones that connect to your main network, just as a computer or printer would.
You can choose from traditional speakers to ones with monitors that can display time, non-emergency alerts, and weather information.
Using Singlewire’s InformaCast with Cisco paging system
When it comes to the software piece of integrating your paging system, Cisco Unified Communications Manager can’t natively page multiple phones at once.
However, Cisco closely partners with Singlewire to offer InformaCast and address this gap. The solution has a tight integration with Cisco collaboration products, so users can still take advantage of paging features – including simultaneously broadcasting messages through overhead and IP phone speakers.
At The KR Group, we recommend InformaCast when we work on paging integrations for customers. However, there are other paging platforms you can partner with as well.
In the end, most paging systems work with your adaptors and gateways, so you don’t necessarily need to purchase additional speakers. (This goes back to considering upgrading, which we discussed previously.)
Apart from speakers, using Informacast also gives you the ability to integrate with email, text alerts, message boards, etc.
For example, schools may use these options to announce closures. Hospitals can use them to alert a floor of a code. Manufacturers can choose how to announce weather emergencies to staff working on the shop floor.
Why should you integrate your paging system?
Getting a new phone system doesn’t mean your paging system is obsolete. In fact, there are many reasons paging systems are still important for businesses.
Regardless of why you need to continue using your paging system, if you’ve upgraded your phone system, you’ll need some combination of ports, an adaptor, InformaCast, and speakers to continue using it.
With these pieces in place, you will be able to continue alerting employees of emergencies and important announcements.
For more information on what to expect when implementing a new phone system — or any IT architecture, check out our free timeline for infrastructure services.
